Cloud and hyperscale companies threatened the status quo in the enterprise storage market in 2017 as sales shifted away from the traditional players, who stepped up their own game in hyper-converged and software-based storage.

IT vendors, telecom giants, and solution providers got in on the M&A action during 2017, so there's no telling what new services are coming to the market in 2018. Here are ten of the biggest, headline-grabbing tech acquisitions of year.

D&H Distributing CEO Izzy Schwab, 82, spoke with CRN about his 60th anniversary at the company, the culture of the employee owned fourth generation family business and what he is most proud of as the company prepares to celebrate its centennial.

The Channel Company's NexGen 2017 Conference and Technology Expo brought out the best of the best. From new cloud services and innovative and eye-catching products, to brand-new partner strategies, CRN rounded up some of the hottest offerings and vendors on display.

SADA Systems, a high-profile Microsoft, Google, and Facebook partner, is investing millions in cloud. SADA CEO Tony Safoian shared where partners should place their bets and how aspiring cloud partners can get in with the world's largest cloud providers at The NexGen 2017 Conference and Technology Expo.

The departures of 22-year Cisco executives Chris Dedicoat and Rebecca Jacoby sent further signals to partners that CEO Chuck Robbins intends to completely remake the networking giant as a leader in the market for cloud-based solutions.

From multi-billion mergers and acquisitions, to competition heating up in the wireless arena, to the fate of Net Neutrality hanging in the balance, 2017 was a busy year in the telecom industry. Here are ten of the biggest headline-making news stories.

Frank Abagnale, the teenage check forger turned FBI security expert popularized in the film "Catch Me If You Can," spoke with CRN about the cause of blockbuster cybersecurity breaches, why Equifax is the worst breach he has ever seen, and the revolutionary technology that could eliminate passwords.

Cisco channel executive Nirav Sheth spoke with CRN about Cisco's continuing transformation into a recurring revenue-based software company and how it is playing matchmaker between born-in-the-cloud partners and traditional partners in an effort to accelerate cloud-based business.

Companies such as Netskope, Skyhigh Networks and Symantec have set the standard for cloud access security brokers, Gartner said, but giants like Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle are in a position to funnel resources into their recent CASB acquisitions.

The security industry saw more threats and funding opportunities in 2017, with massive data breaches and ransomware attacks crippling major institutions, and vendors tapping into the deep pockets of private equity and IPOs.